So I'm dating this from when I should have written it though I am not actually posting until early 2013. Anyway this is adapted from my field journal
the time and although I reference in "later" posts to need to write this one, I do want to keep these things somewhat chronological. Just an FYI.
In June 2011 I took one last field trip for
inputs into my study (or whatever it is we want to call it) with the NGO that I
was brought to Indonesia to work with. I had already gone to Aceh
mainly because the opportunity came about and I needed the kick in the butt to
get out of Jakarta, NTT because it was seen as the “best”
region for the program – North Maluku (or Malut) was seen as the
“worst” and my task was the understand the reasons for the difference. (In
short: social context. lucky staffing in NTT. cultural attitudes of the
national staff.)
There’s a lot to say about the history and
economy of the region which I’ll let you read about on your own, but one of the
key ones that stuck out for me was the murderous sectarian violence in the late
90s/early 00s nominally between Christians and Muslims. The mental image of
piles of dead bodies and camps for displaced people is hard to reconcile
because today people don’t reference it, and make a point to talk about how
everyone gets along. And of course there’s no monument or museum. But villages
are segregated and there is none of the conscious acknowledgement of other’s
religion that I saw in NTT.
June 1.
Malifut
I suppose a day when you leave the house and
get on a plane and are halfway to another island before sun up is bound to feel
long. With the one male program manager in the NGO I’m working with, I flew to
Ternate, a small island off the coast of the much larger Halmahera and the
capital of the North Maluku province, via the city of Manado. He’s here to make
arrangements for a provincial conference in a few weeks, I’m here to learn
about what works and what doesn’t in the province that is considered the least
well-performing of the NGOs prgramming areas.
After some interviews in Ternate, we then arranged
a boat ride across the channel to Halmahera. The boat was essentially a souped-up
wooden rowboat with a motor attached and a section with walls and a roof that I
wasn’t entirely sure I wanted to be trapped in when we stalled due to a stick
getting caught in the motor and when the waves started to get about as big as
the boat towards the end of the passage. After eating at the serviceable dingy
restaurant at the port in Sofifi, Adi arranged seats for us in a pay-per-seat
jeep with a driver that turned out to be hell on wheels and a the agricultural
extension agent Along the way, we picked up a pair of gold miners on the side
of the road.
Eventually we arrived more or less unscathed
to the home of one of the community leaders for the NGO and had a bit of a
visit, eating friend banana and drinking tea as one does. We also needed to
make various arrangements including a rental car which was taken care of Indonesian
style which is to say a few hints were dropped, a bit more tea drunk, a few
more bananas pressed on us and suddenly a plan for the week was in place and
the neighbor showed up ready to talk price of serving as our driver for the
week. That conversation proceeded in a similarly restrained and subtle manner
and ultimately we got the car and driver for about $50/day plus gas, compared
to the $120 we would have paid had the travel agent made the arrangements
remotely. While I do appreciate the availability of public information like we
roll in the US, once you’re tapped in here, one connection and a few dropped
hints can move mountains.
So having gone from central Jakarta to the
airport (car) to Manado (plane) to Ternate (plane) to Sofifi (boat) to Malifut
(car) I’m now hanging in our reasonably clean and comfortable hostel on the
second floor above a shop, with the electricity going on an off and a minor
need to pee but little desire to walk back out there to the shared bathroom
with my flashlight and toilet paper in hand.
June 2.
Malifut.
After a delayed start to the day in which I
kept our Ibu-ibu escorts waiting, mistakenly thinking we were only 1 hour
different from Jakarta here, today was another 4-in-1-er.
The packed days on these field trips are rife
with various sorts of stress. On the one hand, they are in part driven by my
panicked drive to talk to everyone whom I possibly can, to arrive at that
moment of clarity that I “get” what’s going on and can explain it in my own
words – the moment that I’m always convinced will not arrive. But then between
early mornings, late nights and the need to eat and sleep I don’t have time to
enter field notes or really process all of the information that I’m trying to
suck in. So there’s almost an existensial tension underlying the whole thing
too – what is the point of all this use of time and resources? (The North
Maluku trip will ultimately direcrtly cost the funder $3000 for a 4 day trip
including my fee): Just so that I can arrive at a moment of clarity?
Existential underpinnings or not, we did 3
interviews and a group discussion by lunchtime. Battered fried shrimp were nice
and the place we ate was clean with clean bathrooms - but it was unmistakably
the closest thing to a truck stop in a place with not many trucks. Despite the
good food and clean facilities, the place crept me out a bit. Maybe the overly
powdered ladies floating around hanging on the drivers who bring in their
customers. Also reminds me of long distance bus trips in Bolivia.
After a couple other interviews around town,
we made a failed attempt to get to a village that has a women’s group but that
has lost touch with the NGO and the local leaders – cell phone access is spotty
here and the roads are bad; we eventually had to turn around because of the
road. We redirected ourself to another such village. It was straight out of
Garcia Marquez, this lost village that never sees outsiders, a small flat
orderly place surrounded by jungle and centered around a church with a big
cross next to a soccer field where the entire village was congregated when we
arrived, children running in and out of the crowd and women gossiping on the
sidelines. Of course we arrived at the magic light of the afternoon that made
all of the bright tropical colors brighter and yet more dreamy.
The discussion we had pretty well threw that
romantic vision to the ground and stomped on in with steel toed boots, however.
The women were cowed and whiny, probably thinking we were there to collect the
money they’d used as seed money and not returned, and only got worse when they
realized I actually just wanted to talk to them about what had gone wrong
because they thought it was an opportunity to ask me for things. When I tried
to generally about women’s lives in the village, a random man who had wandered
in to watch the bule hijacked the
conversation at which point I may have literally thrown up my hands and we
hightailed it back out.
After that little misadventure, we had a quick
rest, shower, fried chicken dinner next to the hostel, and one more relatively
smooth and uneventful group discussion back at the home of the women where we
had stopped the first night.
June 3,
Tobelo – the big city....
GodDAMN I wish I had a beer right now.
Apparently it’s available enough that the rather pleasant – by which I mean
clean bathrooms and a friendly
staff – motel that we’re now has signs posted saying that guests aren’t allowed
to drink “hard drinks” in their rooms. But besides the signage I’m not quite
ready to risk the silent judgement from Mas Adi and Pak Darno, my friendly male
sidekicks for this jaunt.
Today started out at the Center the women had
built in Malifut (one big room, cement floor, adobe brick walls, tin roof,
outhouse, mats unrolled for the floor for seating when there are people to sit,
no electricty yet except for the generator rented for the meeting today) for a
meeting led by Mas Adi and some group discussions and individual interviews
with me. The group discussion veered close to disaster on a number of
occasions, not totally surprising given that I decided as I went how to
facilitate, but toward the end we hit a critical sweet spot and heads were
nodding and there was a feeling of having arrived at something in the air.
After lunch I took a little walk up and down
the road in front of the Center. Weird place. Can’t tell what here reminds me
of. A combination of every rural tropical place I’ve been, kind of. The
flatness and space weirds me out a litttle. But the cows and skinny little
goats and hibiscus and coconut trees, comforting.
Then we drove here, a relatively “urban” area
a bit farther north, I interviewed Mas Adi along the way, lovely man, and we
set up here, found internet, found some amazing grilled chicken for dinner,
settled in, doing these notes in my room. Without beer.
June 4.
Tobelo.
Almost midnight. I do have some good notes
from today, I should actually have time tomorrow to go over them... Famous last
words: another lesson. I thought tonight was going to be an early bedtime.
Today we headed out to the rural area outside
the “city” to Galela starting with a breakfast of yellow rice, and real coffee.
So, so good. Had a focus group combining two savings and loans groups, one
Muslim women and one Christian. Went fine. They served snacks I’ve only seen in
Halmahera, donuts smeared with butter and chocolate sprinkles. In theory a
great idea but these are not the best of donuts and the buter is actually crap
margerine. Then on to an interview on somebody’s front porch (houses here are
mostly cement, 1 story, a few rooms, a porch, a front room, the older ones tend
to be overwhelmed with greenery and painted pastel colors), then to “tourist
site,” which was a park overlooking a lake with some little gazebos scattered
about with benches and tables. Definitely the best location I’ve held focus
groups in to date, and oddly people were actually out and strolling and
seemingly enjoying the fresh air.
Lunch was back in Galela -- grilled fish which
was fine; it was nice that there was boiled green bananas and casava – not just
rice (most Javanese people would not agree with me on this point) . A few other
interviews, a debrief with Adi, sate dinner – always good - then to buy jewelry,
which is apparently “the” oleh-oleh from here since they scavenge downed
American World War II planes on Morotai, one island over, for the tin. Most of
it tacky as hell. More talking and now here I am.
June 5. South Galela.
Totally dig this little guest house, with its
view over a lake – other than the fact someone could really just climb into my
room if they wanted. Obviously I booby trapped it.
OK, so much for thinking today was a light
day. (Why did I think that? Why do I persist in having these sorts of
fantasies?)
Breakfast: butter donut. No better in
execution than those served at prior events.
Lunch: Fried chicken in the big a roadside
shack situation. Yum.
Dinner: Instant noodles. This is not what it
sound like; what they do to dress up instant ramen in this country seriously
rocks my world. A whole egg, crunchy fried onions, some green herb floating
around. Seriously good shit. My siblings would have deeply appreciate it.
And in between a bunch of interviews, etc.
including with the female local head of the subdistrict whose living room was
filled with the overstuffed furniture and doilies I’ve come to expect at the
homes of minor functionaries (compared to the worn upholstered or wooden or
plastic furntiure, or floor mats, in other houses), and with a group of women
whose regular meeting place is under the big tree in the front yard. This group
is more “urban,” said tree is right on a busy city street and across from a big
mosque and they were a fun bunch, a good way to end the trip after most of the
people who wouldn’t meet my eyes and didn’t really want to talk to me because
of their bad experiences or their expectation that I was there to take back the
money they had “borrowed” without returning it. Another interview was with a
woman who had had a terrible experience but who was refreshingly willing to
talk about it, in her house that was reachable by walking through back country
dirt paths and surrounded by trees.
June 6.
Back in Jakarta
All done, made it through. Trip home was
hilarious, backwater little airport only not more overwhelmingly chaotic
because no more than 50 passengers could really be passing through any given time.
Eventually got myself on my puddle jumper and had a bit of time to drive around
Ternate before reversing my route back to Jakarta in time for my birthday party
and trip back to the US.
